Hi,
After this month's experience, I think we need to be a bit more careful when we decide to work on conceptual themes. This kind of writing takes far longer than not-so-conceptual articles and maybe we could do them in alternate months.

For this month, I would like to write a piece on Education/Academics as it ties in with some other things I'm working on at the moment.
Thoughts,
Prashant

I agree that this month was extremely difficult. We were going to write about the 'commons' this month - we discussed public vs private now we were going to talk about the commons. However, if this is too heavy-going we can leave it off for a month. What do the rest of you think?
Can you give any more detail on your education/ academics proposal, Prashant? Thnks
K

Hi all - I am thinking of two different articles depending on how this month's topics goes. Depending on which topic I write on will determine the country perspective from which I write. If I write from the Indian perspective, then I could do an overview of commons issues - groups, themes, etc that I know of in that country (a by no means exhaustive list). However, as I am presently in the US - if the theme changes to Education/Academics for October, then I can write for the US perspective on data sharing amongst academics - barriers and benefits. I will specifically write about people in the ecological sciences working on large-scale environmental issues.

I think this is a good idea - it helps me with where my head is at at the moment (one giant wiki). If we write about education, then I'd quite like to look at wikipedia as an Open education resource, and the implications that would have for countries like South Africa where access to knowledge is such a huge issue. Either that, or I'd like to look at case studies, like the Free Highschool Science Textbook project, and other OER initiatives.

If we write about the commons, I guess it would make most sense to do something that mirrors Alli's overview, so we get the same subject from Indian and South African perspectives.
What do you guys think?

Hey all, please let me know if this sounds ok for you: on the "commons" side, I'd suggest an article about limitations and exceptions on copyright; and, on education (I do liked this Education track!), I could write about the LAN houses ("cybercafes") in Brazil, that have been arising as a digital inclusion phenomenon promoted through authentic social demand. Fine?
Btw, what would our deadline be?
See you on thursday!

Hi everyone
I like all your ideas. Maybe we should do the following:
Prashant: education - still waiting for more info
Allison: Indian commons (your edu also sounds interesting but the commons would fit better with this month)
Paula - limitations/ excpetions and cybercafes
Rebecca - wikipedia as OER but look at it from new slant
Paul - commons: we'll need to flesh this out

Deadline for ARTICLE and MULTIMEDIA would be 6 November. But we wil not be able to grant any extensions this month.

I like the idea of a commons theme but I am just working on getting a handle on the concept before I move in a particular direction. The concept of the commons still feels a little abstract to me. At the moment I am thinking along the times of how the notion of a self-sustaining ecosystem of shared content may be applicable to or may benefit South Africa, possibly in the social media space?

I just came across a really interesting video and a link for people working on education related articles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o
http://www.mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/